The Underground City(12)

Casimir’s eyes hooded as he foresaw trouble ahead. Lewis wasn’t going to be the pushover he’d thought and the last thing he wanted him to do was tell the whole story to his parents. They’d make enquiries at Al Antara and he frowned at the thought of the mistake he’d made there; for, triumphant in his freedom, he’d looked at the old sheikh through Lewis’s eyes. And the sheikh had known him. Much better to compromise, he thought wisely. Make a bargain. After all, he was sure to win. No youngster could hope to outwit him. It would all come to the same thing in the end and wishes seemed as good a way as any of keeping this young hothead on a string.

“Shall we make a bargain, Lewis?” he suggested. “I will grant you one wish every day and if, by any chance, I can’t do what you ask then my magic will revert to you. If you can’t make a wish, however, I will take over your body and I will live in it for ever.”

Lewis thought about it. It seemed a fair deal. There were millions of things in the world to wish for, after all, and he was quite sure that if he put his mind to it he would be able to think of something the magician couldn’t do. Like moving mountains! I mean, surely this old man couldn’t shift something like Mount Everest … but still …

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “I don’t really want anybody living inside me. Why don’t you just get lost! Or find somebody else!”

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for the moment, Lewis,” Casimir answered, eyeing him coldly, “and, quite frankly, you’d be wise to make the best of it.”

Lewis, however, still looked undecided. Casimir sighed and tried to tempt him. “You can wish for anything, you know,” he reminded him. “Money, a fast car, a …”

“What would I do with a fast car,” Lewis said disgustedly. “I can’t sit my driving test for a couple of years yet and my parents would ask me where I’d got it from.”

“Well, what would you like to wish for?”

Lewis looked thoughtful. What he wanted most of all was to punish Peter, Jack and Colin for daring him to go to Al Antara in the first place. “Could you make someone …” He had been going to say “suffer” but the sneering, knowing look in Casimir’s eyes stopped him.

Now, underneath his abominable manners, Lewis was not, actually, all that bad. He was an only child, more than a bit spoiled and because his parents were always on the move jobwise, found it hard to mix and make new friends. “Could you make somebody like me?” he blurted out.

“The whole country if you like,” offered Casimir obligingly.

“No, no. Just Peter, Jack and Colin and … and … perhaps the people at school. You know, the teachers as well.”

“Done,” Casimir smiled triumphantly.

And with a sinking heart, Lewis realized too late that he had been very neatly outsmarted. It was then that the phone had started to ring. It hardly stopped all morning and most of his class came to say goodbye. Peter, Jack and Colin, he thought, had been really sorry about the dare but with the djinn’s magic floating round the place, he couldn’t be sure if they were telling the truth. The class had given him a wonderful send off but knowing that their feelings were the result of magic, left Lewis less than impressed and looking back on it, he was furious with himself for wasting his first wish.

He shifted in his seat and sighed as he took stock of the situation. Mind you, it wasn’t all bad, he reckoned. Most of the time, he forgot that the djinn was there at all for it didn’t interrupt his thoughts or speak to him the whole time. In fact, it seemed that the only time he could talk to the djinn was when he was standing in front of a mirror. In this, he was totally mistaken, as he was soon to find out, but at the time he believed it and relaxed. It might, actually, work out quite well, he thought, looking on the bright side. Not everybody, after all, could have a wish granted every day. He might even have some fun!



His mother didn’t stop talking from the time she met them at Edinburgh Airport till they reached the huge house she’d rented in Heriot Row. It had been pouring with rain when they’d landed and Lewis wasn’t at all sure if he was going to like living in Edinburgh. He looked round. The house was grey, the street was grey and the rain was grey. Even his father felt it. “We’re going to miss the sun and the sand, Lewis,” he said tiredly. “And, if anything, Aberdeen is greyer than Edinburgh!”

“This is Mrs Sinclair, Bob,” his mother said as the door opened. “Lewis, say hello to Mrs Sinclair, our housekeeper. She has kindly agreed to stay on while the Robinsons are in America. I’ve been telling Lewis,” she said to the housekeeper, “that he’ll have to keep his room tidy so that you don’t have to climb all those stairs every day!”